XJTLU-CHINA
According to our experiment, RNA thermometer will form a loop on mRNA to inhibit protein translation, while the loop could open if temperature increases so that ribosome can pass the loop and produce peptides. We aim to use LEGO robot to present how the RNA thermometer work in E coli. Furthermore, in order to show this processing directly and teach public some knowledge of synbio, we designed and assembled a LGEO model to stimulate protein translation.
The robot represents as ribosome, a protein synthesis machine.
The double bridge represents the RNA thermometer. The bodies of double bridge are mRNA sequence; the gap between two bodies represents hydrogen bounds. The bridge in up state means RNA thermometer form a loop to inhibit translation, however the bridge in down state means RNA loop disappeared so that ribosome can pass.
The red and blue balls represent peptides of chromosome proteins.
Hello, I am a happy ribosome; now, I bind with my favorite mRNA and start to finish my job producing peptides.
BUT, WHAT IS THIS? A loop on the mRNA stops me; I cannot walk alone the way! OMG!!! Who can help me? T^T
This loop called RNA thermometer is formed by hydrogen bounds. The bounds will break up if temperature increases.
Fortunately, the loop disappears because of increasing temperature so that I can pass this typical sequence to restart my work.
I walk alone the mRNA sequence, translate every codon to amino acid, and connect them to peptide by dehydration.
Here, I finish my job~ the red ball and the blue ball are the peptides of chromoproteins.
Time: May 20th 2015
Location: Science Building SA236
Participating member: team members in XJTLU-CHINA, staffs in the department of biology, students interested in synbio and iGEM.
Purpose of this event: we hope more people could know about iGEM competition and have an interest in synthetic biology. Also, we hope for support and permit from our university.
In the beginning, Jodie introduced synthetic biology and iGEM competition. She talked that: ‘Synthetic biology is the design and construction of new biological parts, devices and systems and the re-design of existing natural biological systems for useful purposes. Also, Synthetic biology is the engineering of biology. This engineering perspective may be applied at all levels of the hierarchy of biological structures – from individual molecules to whole cells, tissues and organisms. In essence, synthetic biology will enable the design of ‘biological systems’ in a rational and systematic way’ It gave general information about synbio to some biology freshmen and students from other department. She also talked about iGEM, the main process during the competition, and modern biological technologies used in iGEM. This was the first time professors in biology department know about iGEM and realized its importance.
iGEM logo used for presentstion
2015 iGEM team map
Next part in public speech was introducing several projects in previous iGEM competition. Teammates displayed ‘This is not a lemon!’ project from Paris Saclay, ‘E. Grätzel – Solar BioEnergy’ project from TU-Darmstadt, ‘Membranes from Bacterial Cellulose’ project form Imperial, ‘Magnetic E. coli’ project from Berlin, ‘Engineering a synthetic microbial consortium’ project from Braunschweig University of Technology. All people were surprised about those creative ideas and work from undergraduates. Dr. Meng said these project were amazing and beyond his image. He was hard to believe biology students can finish such excellent work, while maybe scientists could not have those great ideas. Students were also interested in these projects; thereby we gave them web linkages.
Audiences participating in this public speech
The final part was the most important section, the announcement for our own projects. We public two project, which came out after long time discussion and brainstorm. One is a novel proteins expression system with circular mRNA and RNA thermometer. Another is Synthesis of crispr-cas system in gliomas cell to specifically knock out CD44 gene for inhibiting cell migration and activation. Professor Lv asked many question about circular mRNA. He thought it could be used as drug to regulate gene expression; however he doubted that whether it could be used to translation of proteins. Hence, James explain the mechanism of group I intron self-splicing RNA and results from literatures. Pro. Lv agreed and would like to help us with the project. Dr. Liu thought RNA thermometer was quite interesting and could be widely used. She hoped we could use RNA thermometer to create a fantastic project. Although the projects were replaced by another better idea, we were benefit from group discussion and research training.
Explanation time for James
Introduction for RNA thermometer
After this public speech, many biology students strongly wanted to join our team. Unfortunately, we had enough team members so that we encouraged them to participate in the 2016 iGAM competition. We discussed iGEM and projects with professors and all students.
Discussion with professor Lv.
Conversion with all students about iGEM
Participating team: XJTLU-CHINA; NYU-Shanghai; China-Tongji; ZJU-China; USTC; USTC-Software; Fudan
Time: October 8th 2015
Location: Shanghai Science & technology museum
We received an invited letter form NYU-Shanghai for iGEM team communication on 1st October 2015. They organized six iGEM teams from five famous universities located in southeast China. We displayed our projects to public at shanghai Science & technology museum as well as communicated with each other. We prepared a poster about iGEM and our project, also we made a video to show the XJTLU-CHINA iGEM team and Xi`an Jiaotong-Liverpool university.
Exhibition position for XJTLU-CHIAN iGEM team
Poster and communication with other team member
Assembling equipment to play the video
Our lovely princess
The poster showed the topic and proposes of our project. The project is using various colored E. coli to draw a world map. These bacteria could change their color when the temperature increases. Therefore, the color of world map will be changed as well, which could mimic the process of global warming. The poster also illustrated two creative ideas; one was RNA ribosome meter controlling the translation of chrome-proteins, another was genetic circuit which made protein expression ordered. We displayed the poster and introduced the project to other iGEM teams. They were very surprised to the RNA ribosome meter and the design of genetic circuit. Also, they gave us many significant suggestions on completing the project and improving quality.
A gentleman from USTC said: ‘First, I consider that your ideas are amazing! You can stimulate the process of global warming by culturing bacteria on medium. That is so creative. Furthermore, although you are just doing art design, your team has too much work to realize it. In all, your project this year is excellent！I can give you a little advice. Your project could closely stimulate the global climate. Why not go and achieve the up-date data of global climate? Therefore, you can control the temperature to display more detail information. If so, your bacterial map will be closer to the real world.’
Communication with a gentleman from USTC team
A lady from China-Tongji said: ‘It is a great idea to let the bacteria change their color automatically in order to stimulate the process of global warming. This can directly encourage people to feel the influence of global warming. Also, it contains of many aspects and can mimic many phenomena such as sea-level rise and interaction between coastal and inland area. This design is really delicate.’
Communication with a lady from China-Tongji
A handsome guy from NYU-Shanghai said: ‘: I think your project is really cool! I think it different! You guys are a kind of art design, but you are also very scientific. We try to do something similar. We want to do something very (scientific) also very art! Every week, we are getting closer very art. But I think you guys are still vey scientific. It is really cool!
Communication with a handsome guy from NYU-Shanghai
We talked with some members from other iGEM teams. We were interested with their ideas and surprised at their work during summer. China-Tongji iGEM team tried to make nematode light-sensitive, which is an amazing project we thought. However, we suggested that although scientists had created light-sensitive mouse, it was a challenge to let nematode express light-sensitive proteins. Also, we mentioned ethic issues and safety for China-Tongji. ZJU-China team made a funny biological playing card. This bio-card could help student learn many knowledge of synbio. We advised them make the biocard easy-understanding and design more detail information so that public could accept it rather than only biology student. NUY-Shanghai did a fantastic project, they were not limited in synbio but used knowledge and technologies of multiple subjects including engineering, computer science and VR. We learned a lot from what them did and managed to improve our project display. We planned to use LEGO to show our genetic circuit and ribosome meter, thus this presentation would be easy to understand and participate for public. Furthermore, we started to cooperate with them after the workshop. We provided several biobricks for them to support they finish their project.
China-Tongli
NYU-Shanghai
ZJU-China
USTC
One of the most important tasks in iGEM competition is human practice. This part is aimed to let more people in different societies know about synbio and iGEM, also give us a change to change the world. We contributed many efforts to this part and we believed we could make influence on our world. During the workshop, we explained every detail on our project to a museum staff and she presented all projects on the museum website for online visitors. Furthermore, we introduced our project to many visitors. They usually did not have any biological background, thereby we used the simplest way to introduce synthetic biology and show our project. After that, all the visitors understood and felt interested in what we did. Additionally, we gave an academic presentation to an expert from Fudan University. He was very integrated to the ribosome meter and he predicted this technology would have a huge application. During workshop, we surprisingly found that a little child was able to participate in the exhibition of NUY-Shanghai. Giving some educations to next generation may the best thing in this competition, which is our responsibility to influence the world and the further.
Talking with a museum staff
Introduce to a museum visitor
A child listening to biological music
Presentation to an expert from Fudan
Survey for synthetic biology, bio-safety, global warming and our project
Method for Survey: Questionnaire
Starting time：2015-8-1
Ending time：2015-8-31
People were chosen randomly from internet
Data analysis：
The iGEM competition is an annual, world wide, synthetic biology event. This question is aimed to find whether synthetic biology is well-known in China or not and let more people know about this area. According to this result, only a quarter people heard about bio-synthesis before our survey. Over half of people did not know about synthetic biology before. Also, 16 people were not sure that they had a clear idea about synthetic biology. We considered that most of people did not have biological background. Furthermore, industries working on bio-synthesis have just been developed recently in China so that it is not popular right now. Therefore, we should provide some associated information for public. If people chose ‘B’ and ‘C’, the definition of synthetic biology would be displayed. Additionally, we found that they were also willing to search synthetic biology on internet and wanted to learn more about this novel area.
Provided definition: Synthetic biology is the design and construction of biological devices and systems for useful purposes. It is an area of biological research and technology that combines biology and engineering, thus often overlapping with bioengineering and biomedical engineering. It encompasses a variety of different approaches, methodologies, and disciplines with a focus on engineering biology and biotechnology.
As we know, synthetic biology can be applied in many area and even replace some conventional industries. We asked Dr. Liu, a biologist in our university, for which area could be replaced by bio-synthesis. She made a list including agriculture, metallurgic industry, cottonocracy and oil industry. Hence, we asked people this question to find if they knew the application of synthetic biology. Result was that most of people considered that conventional industries such as agriculture, cottonocracy and oil industry could be replaced by bio-synthesis. Particularly, the majority of people chose oil because they know biofuels have been widely used. However, only a few people knew that synthetic biology could be applied in metallurgic area as well.
Biosafety is an important issue in biological research as well as human society. We wanted to find if people knew about bio-safety and we hoped they could pay attention to bio-safety after this survey. Result was that less than a half people heard about bio-safety before and over a half people did not consider about safe problem. Therefore, we provided some information about biosafety after they answered this question; they could learn and start to think about bio-safe problem.
Provided information: Biosafety is the prevention of large-scale loss of biological integrity, focusing both on ecology and human health. These prevention mechanisms include conduction of regular reviews of the biosafety in laboratory settings, as well as strict guidelines to follow. Biosafety is used to protect us from harmful incidents. A complete understanding of experimental risks associated with synthetic biology is helping to enforce the knowledge and effectiveness of biosafety.
Modern biotechnologies improve the development of human society in many areas, for example clinical treatment, biofuels and GMOs. Nonetheless, some people worry that biotechnologies may cause ethic or safe problem in human society. Hence, we ask people this question to find their opinions about biotechnologies. Result was that 32.5% of people agreed that synthetic biotechnology may cause safe problems. While, 28.75% of people considered it was absolutely safe. However, over one third people were not sure that it had positive effect or negative effect. We thought many people in China did not accept biotechnology, they worry it would be harmful to their heath. We should do more work to ensure the safety of biotechnology so that more people will trust it.
We wanted to find Chinese people’ views on climate change. Results are that over a half people considered the situation of global warming was quite serious and almost half of people felt that climate was changing currently. Particularly, there was nobody thinking the climate as same as that many years ago. Therefore, we can know Chinese people still cared about climate and had similar view that climate was changing currently.
We asked reasons for climate change, the majority of people thought we destoryed the environment and a few people considered it was the automatical processing on Earth development.
Most of people industrial pollution is considered as the most serious issue on environmnet as well as the most significant reason for climate change. Also, people thought the reducing vegetation and the destruction of eco-environment caused global warming. They did not view the urbanization and garbage were the main reasons.
CO2 is a type of warming gases, its uncontrolled emissions may result in climate change. We wanted to remain people of reducing the emissions of CO2 in their daily life. We found that people would like to enjoy green lifestyle such as riding bicycle, but they need more guide lines.
Two third of people thought our project is safe, while the rest of them were worried about safety issue. They argued that biology students may have operation mistakes so that these bacteria could separate into environment and cause danger. We explained that we had a serious trainning to prevent any mistake during experiments. Furthermore, any biomaterial in lab must be treated before entering environment.
GMOs are popular in US, they usually have better properties. However, more and more people concern about the safety of genetically modified food, though some authentic organization such as FDA or WHO announced GM foods are absolutely safe. We wanted to find Chinese people’s views on GM foods, thus we ask them question 5, 6, 7 and 8.
We listed many genetically modified foods, which were obtained from internet. Results were that the majority of people know the soybean was GMO as well as anti-virus pimento. While, less than half of people considered that cherry tomato, which means many people still did not it is genetically modified. Particularly, only a few people thought the potato with smooth surface as GMO, but most of people did not know. In conclusion, we thought Chinese people could distinguish some common GMOs, however some they could not. Therefore, more information about genetically modified foods should be provided to public.
We found that about 44% of people had bought and eaten the GM foods while only 4 people clearly knew that they never bought or ate any GM foods. We were surprised found that over a half of people were not sure they ate GM foods. Reasons for that is GM foods were not obviously labeled in China or they usually ignore the label.
Most of people thought that GM foods had good looking so they choose them. Many people thought they were delicious and contained additional nutrition. Also, many people were curious about GMOs and never saw them before. However, some people chose GM foods because the foods were cheap and no organic food was available. Additionally, a few people thought GM food could be preserved long time and had other better properties.
People who considered GM foods safe were less than those thinking the foods dangerous. Nonetheless, there were 60% of people not sure that GM foods is safe or not. We thought more scientific research should be conducted to prove this issue.
This question was just for fun.
